In which Rosie has pleasant and delightful weekend involving records and pastries

Danish pastries for Saturday breakfast

I would've thought muffled? Or crumbly?

Extremely happy concertina player

Some of my new records

Lunch Date with Will at Teasy does it

Sunday-night cinnamon buns and warm milk

How did you spend your weekend?

In which Rosie sees blossom-filled trees, reflects on the ever-changing season, then makes peanut-butter cookies

Since there has been so much rain this week, it has been hard to appreciate that spring is in the air! But considering that it is baby animal season (and there are some very sweet bunnies running around near the civic center) and that the cherry-blossom is in full bloom, I would say that I'm starting to feel the spring-happiness.

Something sweet for the weekend...

Dateland: 9bar coffee

It occurred to me the other that the key to a really great date is knowing the place you live. To expand on this, I will start by defining what a great date means to me - I have been in a relationship for the last 5 years. That's a long time for anyone, but especially since we're both still pretty young, we have been together for a quarter of our lives. Crazy! This means that for me, while movie-and-pizza dates are still pretty amazing, I want something a bit interesting, something new, preferably something involving food. In order to get a bit of variety, it's important to know the area you live in, know what's going on, and know about new places. 
In this post series, I've decided to share all my favorite date locations and activities in and around Newcastle, mostly in the Heaton area, for your viewing pleasure...

So the first of these: 9bar coffee. 
I went to get my hair cut today. Terrible idea. It was raining incredibly heavily all day and my freshly straightened hair was a frizzball waiting to happen, so we were peering out of the hairdresser's windows, trying to find somewhere nearby to go for lunch, and we spotted this place.

  It is decorated in this amazing manner throughout, all the posters say funny things like "Coffee! Do stupid things faster!", the staff were super friendly and the food. Oh my.

  We had deep-fried risotto balls stuffed with mozzarella and shin beef ragu - so delicious and cheap! 2 for £3.75. We also had the most amazing of cheese toasties - super-strong Northumbrian cheddar, spring onions, sourdough toast and melted butter...

 Rather the lovely date, even though it was rather an impromptu one to avoid being rained on! 
Date rundown
Location: 9bar coffee, next to the theatre, Grey street, Newcastle upon Tyne
Occasion: Lunchtime on a Thursday
Food: risotto balls, cheese and onion toasty, walnut and date cake, ginger beer, hot chocolate
High point: guys next to us all sniffing each others wrists and comparing man-perfume in manner incredibly reminiscent of characters in American Psycho 

Weekend fun

 Planning for the week ahead is something that I should probably do more often, but at the moment it is making me indescribably stressed - I have so much to do, money to worry about, deadlines approaching, travel plans that need to be made (something that always worries me) and much as I am enjoying my new phone, I feel like I'm never properly switched off, always fretting about the next event etc. It feels as though the Easter holidays were 100 years ago! But, I had a lovely weekend, so I may as well post about that instead!

 Went along to the Cumberland arms to watch Will's rapper practice and had some very excellent drinks... not to mention an outstanding fish finger sandwich with lime mayo

Possibly the best piece of toilet graffiti ever?

 However, work on Saturday was a bit of a drag. Hence sad Jamie. We were there for three hours before anyone showed up :(

 But then on Sunday, we went over to Will's folks' place for brunch and a hammer dulcimer sesh - such a lovely instrument, which I borrowed and am trying (with marginal success) to learn a few tunes.

loving my new backpack

I also made chicken soup with kneidlach for supper tonight, which was pretty tasty :) Not too bad a weekend, all in all, now to face the week!


What did you get up to this weekend?

Drip drip drop... April showers

Quite the crazy weather day today. Extreme rain followed by sunny times. Following is the first of what I hope to be a number of posts of the subject of My day in pictures.

Pea and ham soup for lunch

Easter fun

Will and I just returned from a few days in Gourock, visiting Will's big bro Louis and his lovely girlfriend Sarah. I love going anywhere even vaguely travel-y with Will (i.e. coming home on the train) because it feels like we're on such an adventure! During the week we went to Nardinis - the most amazing cafe/ice cream parlor which serves such delights as the "hot fudge volcano" and the "hot fudge nutty-nut" (which is the best name for a sundae I've ever heard), and has a live pianist who plays jazz standards! All the interiors are beautifully art deco as well, I wish I'd managed to get some pictures, but the search for the lost camera charger continues...

Other than that, we played lots of board games, Louis taught us how to make fresh pasta, we went for a wander around Glasgow and got the train home yesterday. Now for lots of Uni work over the weekend... sigh. 

Dates and family days

Happy Easter! The long easter weekend is always such a lovely time of year :)
Yesterday we went with Will's brothers and their beaus to a sausage and ale festival (literal sausagefest = lots of bad jokes). We tried:

• Buffalo and Wasabi - not a spicy as I thought it'd be
• Pork and Craster kipper - delish!
• Roast beef, stilton and dark chocolate - strong and interesting flavours
• chicken and garlic snail - quite chewy
• spiced mealworm - let's just say I'm glad Louis waited until I had finished the mouthfull before telling me what it was...

Then we went out for pies...

Lemon Meringue

Toffee Crunch

 
Today we went out to see the Hunger Games and for dim sum - BBQ pork buns = happy Rosie tummy. What did you get up to this weekend?

Update

I've been off the radar for a while, as I lost my camera battery charger. Oh no! I didn't want to become one of those massive-chunks-of-text-with-no-pictures blog (not because those are bad, but because I don't have enough interesting things to say), so I've been (shamefully) not blogging at all. Boo!
Having realized that I would much rather do a few blog posts with no pictures to keep the momentum going rather than stopping altogether, I will redouble my search attempt for the charger, but also keep blogging at the same time.
 Recently I have:

• Been to Ireland for a singing festival
• Attended a funeral (my first ever)
• Started 2 essays
• Thrown a meze-themed dinner party
• Bought some pretty beauty products 
• set a tea-towel on fire
• made 4 cakes
• worked out a new steel pan arrangement
• cleaned my room

Over the next week I intend to:

• Go up to Gourock to visit Will's big brother Louis
• Finish 2 essays
• Go to a picnic 
• Make some hot-cross buns
• Perform in a steel pan concert
• Learn three new songs
• Attend a sausage and ale festival

So those are my plans for the Easter holidays, what are you planning?